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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.-It was Day 3 of NORAD-USNORTHCOM's exercise, Vigilant Shield 08 and Top Officers 4, and the "reports" were coming in of the explosion of "dirty bombs" in Guam, at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and at the Steel Bridge in Portland, Ore.The Joint Interactive Agency Coordination Group staging the exercise to test the national response to the detonation of radiological dispersal devices was on duty."This is an exercise designed to look at the national response if we would have a terrorist attack," explained Michael B. Perini, director of public affairs at NORAD-USNORTHCOM. "The goal of the JIACG is to work out the coordination and processes we need as a nation to manage the terrorist emergency and to do that in a very realistic environment so if it happens for real."We want to avoid having to exchange business cards at the scene of the accident, as it were," Perini stressed.The JIACG involves 40 or more "resident" agencies of the federal government that have assigned permanent representatives to the NORAD-USNORTHCOM headquarters at Peterson Air Force base in Colorado Springs, Colo.Additionally, some 20 non-governmental partners, including private enterprise, are linked by computer and teleconference into the daily JIACG assessment meeting that convenes in the "battle cell" at 9:30 each morning during the exercise.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
